There are friends and enemies — and there are brothers, sisters and other relations. We see them loving each other and hating each other. There are moments when they are ready to die for each other; and then there are moments when they become very inimical — so much so that they can kill each other. And there’s another dimension. A parent wants his or her child to do something and the child resists being controlled. If he cannot resist for some reason and does everything as expected, he or she will keep shimmering, feeling bitter and will take revenge in future whenever possible. Now the question is how to deal with children in such situations?
Osho shares his insight: The mother may love one child more, another a little less. You cannot expect that she should love absolutely equally; it is not possible. Children are very perceptive. They can immediately notice this. They know that this pretension of the mother’s loving them equally is just bogus. So an inner conflict, fight, ambition arises. Osho reminds us to acknowledge that each child is different. Somebody is physically more beautiful than the other or one has a certain charm of personality and the other is lacking it. Then more and more problems arise, and children are taught to be nice, never to be true. If children are taught to be true, they will fight it out, and they will drop it by fighting. They will be angry, they will fight and say hard things, and then they will be finished, because children get rid of things easily. We need to guide children to understand anger as energy, learn catharsis consciously and transform it with sitting silently a few moments in meditation. It is easier if they learn this art in their formative years, because later on it may become quite difficult to change.
